How Awe Consoles
The falcon never pauses on its vaulting spirals
to revel over braided deltas of brown rivers
Nor does the leopard on the limb
exult over the dry golden Mara’s sweep
They eye the found poetry of geography
without words or reverie
Awe is a sense reserved for us
one that lightens and enlightens
unfurls us into a warm sacred sky
appears to make us feel perfectly disappeared
hushes our bleating self-regard with the thrum of the cosmos
or so we feign to recall
Near-death experiences are suspiciously neat
crime scenes staged to frame everyone
No one ever dies only to find their blinding light had attracted a moth
(this must have happened once)
No one levitates only to find the heart surgeon was merely annoyed by their death
(not uncommon)
Our escapes into wonderments are parables contained
We cup hands to our ears, take in less to understand more
Peer through pinholes so we can prism illusions
of deathless dreams
I will die in a trivial number of years and now prepare
The lustrous warp of space-time will be my phase and field
I am calmed by what little I have learned in this universe
Ahead is far more than I have been made to bear
Awe has consoled me by allowing less
and now promises more